What about the women who don’t want a man? This morning my wife was commenting that men tend to be slovenly pigs- that pigs were in fact preferable as they didn’t put on pretentious airs (Someone forgot to clean up after capping a marathon coding session with a late night snack). ;)

I also notice that you talked about legalizing polygyny but not polyandry… Out of curiosity, why?

So, this makes me wonder which society is more progressive, one that allows multiple wives where a woman isn’t abandoned for another, or one that recognises a responsible man can love more than only one wife?

I am a woman who is not opposed to polygyny, but will not stand for abuse. I will not allow my husband to harm either myself or our children, but I wouldn’t mind if he had a second wife. The key here is that it’s not for gain on a religious level for us. It is simply a choice of a different life style than most others. He is not abusive, I am not forced to stay home, I don’t have to wear funny clothes or go to church everyday. It’s not about our religion (we’re not Mormon). When you turn that, or anything really, into a symbol of religious status, thats when you end up with problems.

Marriage should be between the people who are entering into that union and no one else. It should be for reasons of love, not force or gain.

Even if the Mormon church had been monogamous, you would still have the tales of misery.

If a person chooses to be in a relationship that isn’t monogamous, it is none of our business. I have no business stopping my neighbor from marrying anyone for any reason.

If a man tries to compel a woman to marry him by force, then it is a crime regardless of how many (or how few) wives he already has. Prosecute that crime, rather than outlawing all sorts of victimless behavior in hopes that somehow among all the innocent people who are harmed a few criminals will be thwarted.

the suffering of the women and children

I am from a fifth generation mormon pioneer family. The first polygamist in my family joined the mormon church in 1835.

I heard as a child many personal stories from
grandparents of how they suffered and their
mothers suffered in polygamy.

I have read many pioneer journals and histories.
There is no way that polygamy or polygny or polyandry or plural marriage or multiple wives should be legalized or decriminalized.

It would be bad social and bad political policy.
SLAVERY and POLYGAMY (POLYGNY,POLYANDRY,ETC.) ARE FOREVER LINKED.

There is no equality in SLAVERY/POLYGAMY/BIGAMY.

As for equality, is it EQUAL to tell adult women that they cannot have the one man they choose? What about their rights?

Anyway, the fact is that men and women aren’t equal–they’re different. Equal means the same. Physically and mentally, men and women are very different. Value-wise, men and women are equal, of course, but to say that polygamy makes them unequal when it is by CHOICE, is to ignore the fundamental differences between the genders in spite of science and Biblical evidence to the contrary.

As for what Jancis said about men out numbering women, statistically women out number men world wide. Women are about 51% of the world’s population, men are 49%. In polygynous societies less than 5% of married men have multiple wives, and even then they usually only have two. Large harems are not very common.

As for being anti-social, what’s wrong with two or more women falling in love with a man who is able to provide for his family? Often that is the case with Christian polygyny (not what the FLDS practice). It is not to gain status or to become more holy. It’s about adults being in love.

Again, good article. I enjoyed reading it!

We could just as easily be talking about polyandry which is one woman paired with many men, which is rare but not unheard of.

It is kind of strange how everyone makes a simmilar assumption about something that Jancis claims is not a part of human nature.

Oh and having one alpha males who mates with all the females in his band and prevents other males from mating with them shows up repeatedly in the great apes, including our species. From an evolutionary standpoint it is the natural, or primitive condition of human societies. That’s not to say I advocate for people to set up their families that way – most women do not want to live in a polygynous group. Nor do most men want to live in a polyandrous family. Thus the fraction of polygamous families would be quite small if it were legalized and not stigmatized.

Edited to fix numerous spelling errors :(

Also, just legalizing polygamy is unlikely to stop persecution by itself. The historical persecution of polygamists goes far deeper than just bigamy laws. Even non-polygamist mainstream Mormons have found significant anti-Mormon sentiments from others, and add in isolation and “funny clothes” and the like and some people just seem to think that’s some sort of invitation to bully, oppress and condemn.

I do think legalizing polygamy would seriously help by forcing law enforcement and helping the media differentiate between illegal (but not too harmful) polygamy that isn’t really that distinguishable from adultery, having lots of baby mamas or the various other more socially acceptable familial forms and illegal (and quite harmful) abuse of men, women and children.